RICHARD III: film adaptations
The opening soliloquy: various interpretations
The Wooing Scene
THE HOLLOW CROWN: Episode 3
Getting ready for the Mid-year Exam on July 3rd
Apart from re-reading acts 1 and 2 as well as your booklet and folder notes you may wish to check out the following links:
Discussion questions to get you thinking
1) What for you was the most riveting or satisfying moment in the play? Can you account for how the playwright managed to achieve that effect?
2) Who was your favorite or least favorite secondary character in the play? Can you see how the playwright elicited such a response? Follow-up: Why is that secondary character included?
3) If you were asked to direct ________________ (for example, the Richard’s death scene; or the wooing of Lady Anne scene; or another important scene), what choices would you make in your direction and what important ideas of the play would your choices help to emphasize?
4) In a play about royal families, why are common everyday people included? If you were directing, how would you present these characters and why?
5) Richard often talks directly to the audience in the play. What is the effect of this choice by the playwright?
6) Sometimes parts are cut from this long Shakespeare play. What is a character that some directors might consider cutting? Can you give cases for and against cutting this character?
7) This is the only play of Shakespeare’s to begin with a soliloquy, with a character alone onstage describing a long speech. What effect does this soliloquy have on both the audience and the ideas of the play?
8) How does the dramatist use rhythm and breaks in meter to convey theme and character?
1) What for you was the most riveting or satisfying moment in the play? Can you account for how the playwright managed to achieve that effect?
2) Who was your favorite or least favorite secondary character in the play? Can you see how the playwright elicited such a response? Follow-up: Why is that secondary character included?
3) If you were asked to direct ________________ (for example, the Richard’s death scene; or the wooing of Lady Anne scene; or another important scene), what choices would you make in your direction and what important ideas of the play would your choices help to emphasize?
4) In a play about royal families, why are common everyday people included? If you were directing, how would you present these characters and why?
5) Richard often talks directly to the audience in the play. What is the effect of this choice by the playwright?
6) Sometimes parts are cut from this long Shakespeare play. What is a character that some directors might consider cutting? Can you give cases for and against cutting this character?
7) This is the only play of Shakespeare’s to begin with a soliloquy, with a character alone onstage describing a long speech. What effect does this soliloquy have on both the audience and the ideas of the play?
8) How does the dramatist use rhythm and breaks in meter to convey theme and character?
